Alia, I have really enjoyed your posts because for me they give me a glimpse of how people in Jordan view the JRF and Queen Rania. So thank you for your opinions and candour, it is much appreciated.

Quote:

(they have just had their house in aqaba and their beach completely restructured, and i mean big time restructured). It is arguable how much of that money is actually the family fortune (which i&#39;m sure it all is), but it seems extremely extravagant when vast amounts of people in the south and east barely have enough to eat or even shoes to wear to be flying your helicopters down to aqaba every weekend to go to your new upgraded house.

Wouldn&#39;t the renovation of the house in Aqaba be something that Abdullah would take a hand in? Wouldn&#39;t he be the one as head of the house to OK it? Why does Rania get the blame for extravagance when the major decisions lie probably with the King. But it&#39;s easier to blame the woman, right?

As for the shopping etc. I think it&#39;s sad that she is still targeted for shopping too much. I&#39;ve only seen her shop twice overseas in 2003, once in Paris at the start of the year in March and then during the Majorca holiday in July. She&#39;s also stayed pretty much closer to home during the year. Maybe she is taking the criticisms seriously and trying to tone it down.

According to my sources (who were involved in the engineering side of things) it was the queen who insisted on the changes depsite the cost. As for Nour renovating it, well as we&#39;ve seen before, every Queen wants the house to be hers rather than have belonged to any other Queen. And this isn&#39;t the inside but the outside.

They blew up the Mina jetty and created a sort of lagoon with a channel leading to a huge shelter behind the house for the boats (i went to a couple of beach parties next door last year and it was incredible how much the beach had changed). This doesn&#39;t sound like a lot on paper but the engineering works were huge and the face of the place has really changed.

Saudi Arabia&#39;s highest religious authority has issued a stern rebuke to women who appeared at a conference unveiled in the presence of men.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh said the women&#39;s behaviour was shameful and warned of "grave consequences".

His remarks came after the country&#39;s leading businesswoman made a speech without a headscarf at an economic forum in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Lubna al-Olayan used the speech to call for female empowerment in the kingdom.

She said it was essential for Saudi Arabia&#39;s economic wellbeing for the potential of the country&#39;s female workforce to be unlocked.

"Without real change there can be no real progress," she said. "If we in Saudi Arabia want to progress we have no choice but to embrace change."

Her words were echoed by other women delegates.

Resistance to change

The men and women at the conference were separated by a screen, but the women were able to mix with the men in their section - something normally prohibited in Saudi Arabia.

The next day, Saudi newspapers showed pictures of the unveiled women and several editorials spoke of their behaviour as the beginning of the liberation of Saudi women.

But the grand mufti&#39;s statement made clear that the religious authorities would fight any change.

"I severely condemn this matter and warn of grave consequences," he said.

"What is even more painful is that such outrageous behaviour should have happened in Saudi Arabia, the land of the two holy shrines (Mecca and Medina)."

The remarks came as the Saudi authorities moved to introduce limited reforms.

Correspondents say the problem now is to continue to keep a lid on the cauldron of competing interests in the Islamic establishment and an increasingly impatient lobby demanding reform without the pressure boiling over into serious unrest.